This is the website/blog of Philosopher Stephen Law. Stephen is Provost of Centre for Inquiry UK, Senior Lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books (see sidebar). His other blog is THE OUTER LIMITS: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/blibnblob
For school talks and media email Stephen: think-at-royalinstitutephilosophy.org

Sunday, July 29, 2012

What follows is a cautionary bit of fiction, inspired by C.S. Lewis's fiction The Screwtape Letters, Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil,
which are entertaining and often very insightful. I don't
claim my mirror letters are as good as Lewis's, but they are offered in
the same cautionary spirit.

I refer in places to specific mechanisms explained in the book, such as "I Just Know!" and Going Nuclear (follow these links if you are interested, or better still buy the book!)

The
Tapescrew Letters

Letters from a Senior to a
Junior Guru

(Inspired by C. S.
Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters)

Preface

I have no intention of explaining
how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands. One
or two details have been changed to save reputations, but the letters are
substantially unrevised and intact.

Bear in mind
that the author—an eminent guru within some minor, recently invented cult—is a
charlatan, as are her colleagues. She cannot be trusted to tell the truth, not
even to her nephew. Her views about mainstream religion—and Christianity in
particular—are clearly cynical and no doubt unreliable. I leave you to judge
what is true and what is not.

The letters
contain few clues as to the specific teaching of the cult. There is a limited
amount of jargon. “Glub” seems to be the name of some sort of deity or god,
“Boogle” the name of some particularly evil and terrifying being, and
“doob” a term that members of this cult use to refer to outsiders. Glub and and
Boogle may be two facets of a single cosmic being, or two separate, competing
beings involved in some sort of cosmic battle—it’s hard to be sure.

Be warned—the
letters make pretty depressing and sickening reading. Still, they do usefully
reveal just how manipulative and scheming some
people can be. Thank goodness such deliberate charlatans are few and far
between.

"Keep an eye on your online profile: It's crucial to
remember that everything you do online can be seen by everyone. So no
political rants, no passive-aggressive behaviour – keep it light, fun,
happy and professional at all times."

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

In
the second half of Craig’s latest "Reasonable Faith" podcast, he talks about how, he supposes,
atheists know that God exists, despite the fact that they assert that they
don’t. I’d previously said in a post that Craig’s view would seem to have the
consequence that atheists are lying about that, then. Actually, maybe that
doesn’t follow. In the podcast, Craig denies his view is that atheists are lying when they
deny they know God exists. We should accept that denial.

However,
Craig’s explanations for why atheists are not, then, lying when they claim they
don’t know when they do is not, I think, very convincing.

First
he draws an analogy with someone who tries to rationalize away or suppress what
they know. His example is of a married man who has an affair.

The
human psyche is so capable of rationalization and suppressing things that we
find uncomfortable that I think it's very plausible to think that an atheist
could somehow suppress the knowledge of God or rationalize it away so that he
doesn't have to face it overtly. You can think of cases, especially involving
moral misbehavior, where this human ability to rationalize comes out. For
example, men who get caught in sexual affairs will, at least in the beginning
stages of the affair, typically rationalize away the behavior even though they
know that what they are doing is wrong.

Another
example would be, I suppose, a man that does not love his wife, but suppresses
this knowledge and behaves like and says that he does in a attempt to fool both himself and
his wife.

These
are plausible examples of suppressed knowledge. But do they make
the point Craig wants? Suppose the first man says, “I did nothing wrong,” when
asked about his affair. He knows deep down that he did do something wrong.
Would we say that this man is lying? Would you?

I’d say he was, both to others and also to
himself. True, he may at that the moment he says it mean what he says. But what he says is nevertheless, deep
down, a lie.

But
if that is right, then Craig’s chosen analogy backfires on him. If the atheist
similarly suppresses his knowledge that God exists, and says, meaning it, “I
don’t know God exists”, he is also, deep down, lying both to others and himself.

Perhaps
Craig would deny the man who has the affair is lying. "A lie", Craig might insist, "Cannot be sincerely asserted. It cannot be meant." But is this true? It doesn't seem to me to be true (the above example involving the man having an affair seems to be a counter-example, in fact - he means what he says when he says it, but, it seems to me, he's still lying). At the very least, the affair example does not strike me as a clear
cut example of someone's not lying. But then it doesn't really help support Craig’s case much, if at all.

Craig’s
other thought is to borrow Plantinga’s idea that atheists may have a
malfunctioning sensus divinitatis or God-sense. A religious person may know God directly via
the operation of their healthy sensus divinitatis. But the poor atheist’s God-sense
does not operate properly. It's been corrupted by sin.

That’s
an interesting idea, but it hardly helps Craig given that the result of atheist’s non-
or mal-functioning sensus divinitatis will be that they don’t know God exists (at least not by that route). Craig's view is precisely that atheist does know God exists – so, as it stands, his
appeal to Plantinga actually ends up undermining Craig’s position, not
supporting it. It’s odd Craig doesn’t spot this.

Of
course, Craig may want to develop his Plantingian explanation in some way, but as
it stands it fails.

So, perhaps Craig is right that the view that atheists know that God exists does not have the consequence that they are lying when they say they don't. But Craig has so far failed to come up with a clear explanation of why they aren't lying.

However,
the really interesting issue about Craig’s suppressed knowledge thesis is not
whether atheists are lying when they say they don’t know God exists. That's not a very significant question.

Craig
seems to think we atheists just want an excuse to take offence at the
suggestion that we are liars. He says: “I think the reason atheists raise this
is because they want to be able to get their backs up and take righteous offense
and indignation at being called liars by these Christians and theists.”

Frankly, I’m not bothered at all about that. The more interesting issue is whether we atheists do
know God exists, choose to suppress that knowledge, and so do deserve to burn in hell for eternity as a result. Once it’s been suggested that we atheists are so morally
depraved and disgusting that we deserve infinite torture (P.S. or punishment, or whatever you want to call it), adding “Oh, and by
the way, you’re also lying,” is hardly much of an additional insult.

The main reason I’m interested in this issue is not that I want to take righteous offense
at the claim that I'm lying, but rather that this sort of Craigian "suppressed knowledge" view and its connection in his mind with the concept of damnation involves such a foul and twisted – and I
think potentially dangerous - vision of humanity. And also that it is pretty
obviously false. I’ll post on that shortly.

William Lane Craig has just devoted an entire 17 minute episode of
Reasonable Faith to me, available here. I’m honoured!

The first half of the podcast focuses on my posting a
quote from him, a quote that was, at the time, being widely posted and discussed on the internet. Here it is:

The
person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be
atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

Go check my post here. I
provided a direct link to Craig's original full article, and then immediately said: “But does Craig really mean
what he appears to mean? You should make your own mind up about that.”

In
his latest podcast, Craig says that I should have checked the context of the quote – the original
article in which it appeared - and not just repeat it as a soundbite quote out of context.

But of course I did check it. In fact I even provided a direct link to the full article and encouraged readers to go
check the original article themselves and make up their own minds.

So Craig is
here misleading his listeners – he is missing out key pieces of information about my post, which gives a bad impression of me (P.S. Is Craig deliberately misleading? Well, let me acknowledge the possibility that he might somehow have missed my providing the link to the context - he's just been baffling blind to what's clearly right there in the post.)

Craig later says that I know (and knew) that he doesn't believe what he might appear to be saying in the above quote (about 6 mins - P.S. Yes I know that at about 8 mins he says the he, like me, was suckered by someone into accepting a quote out of context that he should have checked, but do please pay close attention to 6 mins, where he says: “I think Stephen Law should have checked out the context. And he should
have corrected those who sent him this quote to him. He knows that it
doesn’t represent my views.”). Craig says I knew the quote doesn't represent his views. So he implies I am deliberately and scurrilously misleading people by posting it. I should have corrected the misinterpretation instead.

But actually, I was, and am, remain deeply (P.S. well, somewhat) baffled by that sentence. Even within the context of the entire article, it is baffling. It's baffling precisely because (i) it doesn't fit well with other things Craig has said, yet, (ii) even when placed in context, does seem pretty unambiguous.

Ironically, at the end of Craig's podcast, while the mood music is playing, he rather condescendingly lectures us - and especially me, of course - on how we should try to read people in the most charitable way, "with sympathy". That is ironic. Shouldn't he have given me that courtesy, rather than (i) asserting that I deliberately posted a quote out of context that I knew misrepresented his view (when I might have been, and indeed was, at that point just baffled), and (ii) telling his listeners I had not bothered to check the context when I very obviously had - I even provided a link.

The other half Craig's podcast looks at my discussion of the view that atheists know God exists "deep down", and my subsequent comment that it would seem to follow that atheists are lying when they say they don't know God exists. Craig explains in the podcast that he does not suppose atheists are lying, and explains why they are not. Now, maybe it doesn't follow from the fact that atheists are asserting what they know not to be true that atheists are liars. That's an interesting issue. But the explanations Craig gives in the podcast for why atheists are not, then, liars both fail. I'll explain why in the next post.

____________
Postscript. By the way here's the quoted sentence in the context of the full paragraph in which it appears:

A robust natural theology may well be necessary for the gospel to be
effectively heard in Western society today. In general, Western culture
is deeply post-Christian. It is the product of the Enlightenment, which
introduced into European culture the leaven of secularism that has by
now permeated Western society. While most of the original Enlightenment
thinkers were themselves theists, the majority of Western intellectuals
today no longer considers theological knowledge to be possible. The
person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end
will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

I'm still kind of baffled by this. Here's the interpretation that seemed most obvious to me at the time, and which I am still not entirely sure is wrong. Given a non-theistic culture, the application of reason will not lead to theism. It will lead to atheism or at least agnosticism. However, within a Christian, theological world-view, theism and Christianity can be shown to be rationally, internally consistent/coherent. We have two world views - both of which are internally rational and reasonable, each with their own presuppositions.

Notice this interpretation would be consistent with Craig's claims elsewhere that theism/Christianity are rational, reasonable etc, and the title of his podcast "Reasonable Faith". It's also a mainstream religious view (it's Alister McGrath's, I think). So I saw no very obvious reason to reject it as an interpretation of the above passage. And it does make the final sentence come out as true. Craig is not just asserting that this is the mistaken view of secular "Western intellectuals". From within the current dominant intellectual culture, the
person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end
will indeed be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

On another reading, Craig is indeed just saying in the final sentence what most of today's Western intellectuals wrongly believe. The final sentence states, indeed flags up, a falsehood (which would have been clear had it begun, "The majority of Western Intellectuals now mistakenly believe that..." Though on this reading the paragraph ends very awkwardly (it asserts what's actually being denied). It's not the most natural reading, I think.

It would be good to know, just for clarity's sake, what Craig meant. It's certainly an uncharacteristically opaque passage open to various interpretations.

The key point of relevance, here, though, is that I did not know, and am still not absolutely sure, what the quoted sentence (and indeed paragraph) means exactly, and whether it it is meant to be true. Hopefully Craig himself will clarify.

[n.b. another fact which caused me pause for thought is that there are some religious intellectuals who hold two views - a "simple" version, for the punters, and a more "sophisticated" version for the intellectual insiders which is not usually made public except in coded form].
______________
Postscript 2. In retrospect, maybe I've overreacted to Craig's podcast on my misunderstandings. Yes he says I didn't check the context when I very obviously did. And yes, Craig does at one point assert that I knew his actual views, and thus that the quote was misleading, when I didn't. These comments do put me in a poor light. But of course, he's hardly spent the 17 mins of the podcast accusing me of murder, here, has he? Perhaps I should have just shrugged and let it go. The more important task is to engage with his actual arguments....

Saturday, July 14, 2012

I notice that the £284 million new deal private security firm G4S
struck with the (Tory) Government was, in effect, that they would get
£20,000 per security employee, for each of the 13,700 security staff
they promised to supply (but will fail to supply) for the Olympics. We
all now know how little training and vetting those staff are getting.

But
my question is - why was the deal ever made in the first place? G4S are
paying those staff £6.50-£8.50 per hour (after promising £14 per hour,
according to one potential employee.) Three weeks full-time work at 40
hrs per week will earn each security employee a maximum of about £1,000
each.

So, where does the other £19,000 go that we the
British taxpayers are paying for each of them? How on earth could this
have been thought a good deal for the British public?

I imagine G4S are generous Tory party donors but is there any other explanation?

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

One of the most intriguing of
philosophical puzzles concerns other minds. How do you know there are any? Yes,
you’re surrounded by living organisms that look and behave much as you do. They
even say they have minds. But do they? Perhaps other humans are mindless
zombies: like you on the outside, but lacking any inner conscious life,
including emotions, thoughts, experiences and even pain. What grounds do you
possess for supposing that other humans (including even me) aren’t zombies?
Perhaps less than you think.

At the
dentist’s

The
scene: a dentist’s surgery. Finnucane is prostrate in the dentists chair, his
mouth stuffed with cottonwool balls. A balding and bespectacled dentist is
poking at a filling at the back of Finnucane’s mouth.

Dentist: Is it safe?….Is
it safe?

Finnucane: Aaaargh!

Dentist. No. It’s not
safe. It’s dropped out altogether. Very inferior quality filling. I shall
replace it. I’ll give you some pain-killer. Even though I don’t believe you
feel pain.

Finnucane
can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Dentist: That’s right. I
don’t believe you feel pain. In fact I
don’t believe you have a mind at all.

Finnucane
squints.

Dentist: Why? Because I
am The Rational Dentist, that’s why.
I’m not like those other dentists. I believe only what it’s reasonable to
believe. Open wide.

The
dentist takes a long silver syringe from a tray and slowly inserts the needle
into the soft flesh at the back of Finnucane’s mouth. Beads of moisture appear
across Finnucane’s forehead and his eyes widen in panic.Gradually the pain
starts to fade.

Dentist: Oh, I know what those other dentists say.
They say [in mocking tones], “But of
course I am justified in believing that my poor patient has a mind. I poke
his gums with one of these. And observe. He sweats. He writhes. He cries out.
Surely I have all the evidence I could possibly want that I’m dealing with
another conscious being like myself. He even tells me he’s in pain.”

The
dentist puts down the syringe and stares coldly at Finnucane.

Dentist: I’m not so easily fooled. All this so-called
“evidence” is totally unconvincing.

The private mind

Finnucane is astonished. How could anyone fail to believe that others
have minds? We would ordinarily consider such a person to be mad, dangerous
even. Yet the dentist insists he is merely being rational. He peers at
Finnucane.

Dentist: You’re looking quizzical. Allow me to
explain. My argument is simple. First, I cannot directly witness what goes on in another’s mind. I can observe
their outward behaviour. But I can’t observe what goes on inside their mind, if
they have one. Their experiences, beliefs, emotions, pains and so on – all are
hidden away. A mind is a private place. The most private place of all.

It seems the dentist is correct. Suppose, for example,
that you take a bite out of a lemon. You experience an intense bitter taste.
You are directly and immediately aware that that you are having this
experience. While others may experience the same sort of taste, it’s impossible
for you to verify this directly. You cannot, as it were, enter into another’s
mind and observe what they are experiencing along with them. The experiences of
others are necessarily hidden.

The dentist fumbles with his drill. Finnucane
watches nervously.

Dentist: Oh, I can guess what you would say were you
mouth not stuffed with cotton wool balls: “But you don’t have to rely on my behaviour. What if you were to scan what’s
going on in my brain? What if you put a fibre-optic probe in there, so that you
could see my pain neurones firing? Then you would have direct evidence that I’m
in pain.” That’s what you would say, correct?

Finnucane
nods.

Dentist: Wrong again! I still wouldn’t have direct
evidence. For how do I know that this sort of neurone firing is accompanied by
consciousness, by feelings of pain, in other human beings? Perhaps it’s only in
my own case that brain activity is accompanied by mental activity. Open wide
again.

The argument from analogy

The
dentist places a plastic suction tube in Finnucane’s mouth and begins to drill.

Dentist: Now the other dentists, they admit all this. They say, [again,
mockingly] “Okay, I admit you can’t have direct access to what’s going on in
the mind of another. But it doesn’t follow that you don’t have good reasonto believe others have minds. You do.
Their behaviour provides you with
excellent grounds for supposing this. You
know in your own case that when
you’re pricked sharply, you feel pain. You also know that when you experience
that pain, you’re liable to flinch and yell. When you observe other human
beings, you find that when they are pricked sharply, they also flinch and yell.
Doesn’t that provide you with good grounds for supposing they experience pain
too?”

The argument just outlined by the dentist is called the argument from analogy. At first sight,
the argument looks highly plausible. Most of us, if asked to justify our belief
in the existence of other minds, would no doubt offer something similar. But as
the dentist is well aware, there’s a notorious difficulty with it.

A problem with the
argument from analogy

Dentist: Open wider. Now of course I
understand this argument. I’m not a fool. But I am afraid the logic is faulty.
For you see, these other dentists are guilty of making an unwarranted generalization.

Finnucane is struggling to hear what the dentist is
saying over the noise of the drill.

Dentist: Let me explain why. Suppose
I cut open one thousand cherries and find every single one has a stone in the
middle. Surely I’m now justified in generalizing.
Surely I’m now justified in believing that all
cherries have stones in the middle. Admittedly, I might be wrong. But the one
thousand cherries that I have observed surely give me prettygood reason to
believe that all cherries have stones, reason sufficient to justify my belief.
Correct?

Finnucane nods.

Dentist: But now
suppose that, instead of basing my inference on an observation of a thousand
cherries, I base it on an observation of justone. Then my inference would be very
shaky, wouldn’t it? My one cherry may provide some slightevidence in support of the claim that all cherries have stones,
but it’s surely not enough to justify my making that generalization. For all I
know, some cherries may have stones and some not, just as, for example, some
animals have male sex organs and some not. This may be a very unusual cherry,
just as an oyster with a pearl inside is very unusual. In order to justify my
generalization, I surely need to look inside very many cherries. Correct?

Finnucane: Uh huh.

Dentist: But now think about the argument of the
other dentists. It, too, is a generalization based on just a single
observation. I notice that, in my own case, when I am pricked sharply and I
flinch and yell, this behaviour is accompanied by pain. I am then supposed to
conclude that when others are pricked sharply and they flinch and yell, they
must be in pain too. Yes?

Finnucane: Uh huh.

Dentist: But one can’t justify the belief that others
have minds on the basis of such flimsy evidence. This inference is surely no
less suspect than the inference based on a single cherry. To infer that others
have minds on such grounds is wholly unwarranted. It’s irrational. Being The
Rational Dentist, I refuse to accept an irrational conclusion.

Scepticism about other
minds

The dentist appears to be
right. I can’t directly observe what goes on in the mind of another, or even
that others have minds. So how might my belief in their existence be justified?
Only, it seems, by the argument from analogy. But the argument from analogy is,
in effect, a generalization based on a single observed case. So it’s just as
shaky as the inference based on the single cherry.

The conclusion to which I
seem forced, then, is that I am not
justified in believing that there are any minds other than my own. And if I am
not justified in believing there are minds other than my own, then presumably I
can’t be said to know that there are
minds other than my own, for presumably it is a condition of knowing that there
are other minds that I be justified in supposing my belief is true.

This is a sceptical conclusion: it says that I
don’t know what I might think I know. This particular form of scepticism –
scepticism about knowledge of other minds – has a long history. And of course,
like most sceptical conclusions, it’s highly perplexing, for it runs entirely
contrary to common sense. (You will find other forms of scepticism discussed in
other chapters: chapter XX “Brainsnatched” discusses scepticism about the
external world and chapter XX “Why Expect the Sun to Rise Tomorrow?” focuses on
scepticism about the unobserved.)

So the sceptic leaves me in
a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, it seems I have little if any reason
to suppose there are other minds. On the other hand, this conclusion is so
counter-intuitive that I suspect the sceptic must have gone wrong somewhere
along the way. The challenge I face, then, is to identify what, if anything, is
wrong with the sceptic’s argument.

[[TEXT BOX: THINKING
TOOLS: How not to respond to scepticism. People commonly make one of two
mistakes when presented with such seemingly compelling sceptical arguments.

First, they just dig in and dogmatically assert that
of course they know that their’s is not the only mind – it’s “just obvious”
that other minds exist. This is hardly an intelligent response, however. Sure,
we feel certain that there are other minds. But simply to appeal to such
feelings when presented with a sceptical argument is a mistake. What has previously
struck us as “just obvious” has in many cases turned out to be wrong. That the
Sun revolves about a stationary Earth, for example, was at one time considered
by almost everyone to be “just obvious”. Consider how irritatingly irrational
were those who continued brutely to insist that it is “just obvious” the Earth
is stationary even after they had been presented with powerful evidence to the
contrary. To similarly dismiss the sceptic’s argument would be no less
irritatingly irrational.

The second mistake is
blithely to accept the sceptic’s conclusion because one has underestimated its
strength. It can be tempting to say, “Yes, yes, I agree with you that I can’t
be certain that there are other
minds. I admit I don’t know they
exist. But still, it is pretty likely
that they exist, isn’t it?”

This is simply to
misunderstand the argument. The sceptic is not
arguing that, because there is room for doubt about the existence of other
minds, therefore one can’t know that they exist. That would be a rather feeble
argument, an argument based on the dubious assumption that one can’t be said to
know something unless it has been established beyond all doubt. The dentist’s
argument is much stronger. The dentist argues that not only is there room for doubt about the existence of
other minds, there is actually little if
any reason to suppose they exist. This is a much more dramatic conclusion,
a conclusion that few if any of us really accept. END OF TEXT BOX]

Is the dentist rational, or insane?

The
dentist leans over Finnucane again, his antiseptic-smelling breath fogging
Finnucane’s glasses. He starts to work the new amalgum filling into the hole he
has drilled in Finnucane’s molar.

Dentist: Perhaps you
would say, “But why, if you don’t believe I have a mind, do you go to all the
trouble of speaking to me, of administering anaesthetic, and so on?” The answer
is: because I find that if I administer anaesthetic my patients don’t moan and
thrash about. I use it to control behaviour. And I speak to them because I find
it enables me to have some control over their behaviour. And also because it
amuses me.

Finnucane raises his eyebrows.

Dentist: And of course,
it is possible that you have a mind.
I don’t deny that. So I give you the benefit of the doubt. I administer anaesthetic
just in case.

Finally,
after a few minutes, the filling is complete. Finnucane leans forward
groggily, cotton wool balls tumbling from his mouth. He spits a bloody gobbet
into the stainless steel tray. No longer at the dentist’s mercy, Finnucane finally
feels free to speak his mind.

Finnucane: Good grief. You’re not the
rational dentist. You’re the mad
dentist. Anyone who, like you, refuses to believe that others have minds, is,
frankly, ill!

Dentist: It’s true that I’m often accused of suffering from some sort of
mental illness. But my accusers are fools. For the truth is that I am merely
being rational. I believe what it is reasonable to believe. And what is wrong
with that?

Finnucane: You’re insane!

Dentist: It’s ironic, don’t you think, that you accuse me of being
insane, when I’m the rational one?

The dentist is a bizarre
character, frightening even[i].
We would find profoundly disturbing anyone who genuinely refused to believe
that others have minds. In fact, scepticism about other minds is, for anyone
not in the grip of some sort of mental illness, surely impossible to believe.
The kind of disengagement from others required permanently to maintain the view
that, for all you know, they are merely mindless automata is surely the
hallmark of a kind of insanity.

And yet, for all that, the
dentists’s seemingly “insane” sceptical position may be the rational position
to adopt. Perhaps he is right that we’re the “irrational” ones. The onus is
clearly on us to explain why belief in the existence of other minds is
justified.

Let’s
now take a look at two well-known attempts to solve this puzzle. The first
involves defending the argument from analogy.

1:
Defending the argument from analogy

In response to the sceptical
argument, you might point out that sometimes we are justified in generalizing on the basis of a single observed
instance.

Suppose I decide to take my
Kawazuki K1000 stereo apart to find out how it works.

[ILLUSTRATE: ME DISMANTLING
STEREO.]

I investigate its inner mechanism and establish how
everything functions. Wouldn’t I then be justified in concluding that all stereos of that make and model have
the same sort of internal mechanism? Surely I would. Yet this would be a generalization based on a single observed instance:
my own stereo. And if we are sometimes justified in generalizing on the basis
of a single observed case, then perhaps we are also justified in doing so when
it comes to other minds. In which case the argument from analogy is sound after
all.

This
is an interesting suggestion. But there are problems with it. True, it seems I
am justified in believing that all Kawazuki K1000 stereos have such-and-such an
internal mechanism on the basis of having opened up just one. But I am only
justified because I am in possession of considerable background information about such devices and their inner
workings. For example, I know that my Kawazuki K1000 stereo is a piece of
machinery mass-produced for profit. I know that it takes a considerable
investment in time and money to develop an inner mechanism of this sort. So I
know that the Kawazuki Corporation is hardly likely to have bothered developing
lots of different internal mechanisms to do the very same job. It’s because I
possess this sort of background information that I am justified in believing
that all the other Kawazuki K1000 stereos have the same sort of inner
mechanism.

However,
I am not warranted in generalizing on the
basis of a single observed case where such background information is missing.
For example, if, for all I knew, each Kawazuki K1000 stereo might just as
easily have been made, not by a single manufacturer, but by one of thousands of
entrants in a competition to come up with internal machinery that would make
these boxes marked “Kawazuki K1000” behave in just the way they do – raising
the volume when this knob is turned, changing the radio station when that
button is pressed, and so on – then of course I am no longer warranted in
supposing that the other boxes will contain the same internal machinery.

So the question
is: do I possess the kind of background information necessary to justify my
inference about the existence of other minds?

It seems not. In the stereo example, my inference
depends on my background knowledge about mass-produced machines and their
internal mechanisms. But in the case of other minds, I don’t appear to possess
this sort of background knowledge. For my
mind is radically unlike anything else I have ever experienced. For me to
conclude that, as I have a mind, so too must other humans is akin to me
entering a strange land, discovering that the first flower I examine contains a
fairy, and then concluding that so too must all the other flowers. What I
discover inside the first flower is so strange and unusual that no such
inference is warranted.

It seems, then, that I’m still not justified in
believing that there are minds other than my own.

2: The logical behaviourist approach

Here is a different kind of
solution to the puzzle of other minds, the solution offered by the logical behaviourist.

Consider the solubility of a
sugar cube. Solubility is what is known as a dispositional property – its possession by a sugar cube just
consists in the fact that if the cube
were placed in water under the right circumstances, then it would dissolve. Indeed, it’s true by definition that something is soluble just in case it is
disposed to dissolve in water, in just the same way that it is true by
definition that all stallions are male or that all triangles have three sides.

Now some philosophers have suggested that mental
properties are also dispositional properties. Indeed, some suggest that all
talk about minds and what goes on in them can be translated, without residue,
into talk about behavioural dispositions. This is the position of the logical
behaviourist.

Take
pain, for example. To say that someone is in pain just is, according to the logical behaviourist, to say that they
are physically disposed to behave in certain ways – to flinch, yell out, and so
on. It’s true by definition that those in pain are disposed to behave like
that. This is not something we need to discover.

Logical
behaviourism, if true, would neatly solve two classical philosophical problems
concerning the mind. First of all, it would explain how material objects, such
as our bodies, can possess minds. For an object to have a mind is just for it
to possess the right sort of behavioural dispositions. That’s all there is to
it. So we no longer have to make room for mysterious and ghostly extra
“somethings” – minds – in the world, in additionto physical
objects and their various physical dispositions. The “ghost in the machine”, to
borrow the behaviourist Gilbert Ryle’s (1900-1976) memorable phrase,
disappears.

The
other classical conundrum that would be solved is, of course, the one we have
been discussing here: the problem of explaining how we come by knowledge of the
existence of other minds. According to logical behaviourism, what makes the
problem of other minds seem so intractable is a certain mistaken conception of
what minds are like. If we think of the mind as the elusive “ghost in the
machine”, then we are immediately struck by the problem of explaining how we
establish the existence of this “ghost” in others. For all we can observe of
other human beings is their outward behaviour. But if Ryle is right, the mind
is not a peculiar ghostly “something” hidden
behind the outward behaviour. Rather, the mind just is a highly complex set of behavioural dispositions.

Just as there is nothing
particularly difficult about establishing what dispositional properties – such
as solubility – a sugar cube has, so, if Ryle is right, there is nothing
particularly difficult about establishing that human beings have minds. You
need only establish how they are disposed to behave, and that can be done quite
easily. Just as you can have good grounds for supposing that sugar cubes are
soluble, so you can have good grounds for supposing that others feel pain.

Attack of the zombies

Has the logical behaviourist
solved the problem of other minds? No. Unfortunately, logical behaviourism is
not a particularly plausible theory of the mind. Perhaps the most serious
difficulty with it is raised by the
conceptual possibility ofzombies.

In the movies, zombies drool
and stumble about. The kind of zombies I have in mind are rather different:
their behaviour is exactly the same as that of a minded person. Philosophical
zombies, as I shall call them, behave perfectly normally. However, like movie
zombies, philosophical zombies have no minds: they are, to borrow the dentist’s
ugly phrase, “mere meat machines”.

Imagine a world physically
exactly like this one but populated by zombies. This imaginary world even
contains even a zombie version of you: just like you physically, but all is
dark within. Of course, it’s not remotely likely that this zombie world
actually exists. But (and this is the key point) we can at least make sense of the possibility of such a
world.

Contrast the suggestion that
there might be a world that contain non-male stallions or a world that contains
triangles with four sides. These worlds don’t even make sense. For of course it
is a definitional truth that stallions are male and that triangles have only
three sides. Zombie world makes sense in the way that four-sided triangle world
and non-male stallion world don’t.

But here’s the problem for
logical behaviourism. If logical behaviourism is true, then it should no more
make sense to suggest that zombie world might exist than it does to suggest
that four-sided triangle world might exist. Just as it’s true by definition
that a triangle has three sides, so it is supposed by the logical behaviourist
to be true by definition that any creature that such-and-such behavioural
dispositions has a mind. Zombies, being creatures that lack minds but have the
same behavioural dispositions as ourselves, should be ruled out by definition.

But we have just seen that
zombies are not ruled out be
definition. But then it follows that logical behaviourism is false. And if
logical behaviourism is false, then it can’t be used to solve the puzzle of
other minds. The puzzle remains.

Conclusion

Most of us would say that Finnucane’s
dentist is irrational, insane even. But perhaps it is we who are irrational,
not the dentist. Can you rationally defend your belief that there are mind’s
other than your own?

I don’t yet see how.

What
to read next?

Chapter XX “Brain-snatched” and chapter XX “Why Expect
the Sun to Rise Tomorrow?” discuss other varieties of scepticism: scepticism
about the external world and scepticism about the unobserved.

[i]In fact I have made
the dentist slightly scarier than a sceptic need be. But I have tried not to over do it. I didn’t want the dentist to appear
deliberately cruel and sadistic. After all, if the dentist clearly got some sort of perverse pleasure out of
inflicting pain on Finnucane, that would suggest he did after all believe
Finnucane had a mind worth torturing.

The year is 2100. Kimberley Courahan has purchased Emit,
a state-of-the-art robot. She has just unwrapped him, the packaging strewn
across the dining room floor. Emit is designed to replicate the outward
behaviour of a human being down to the last detail (except that he is rather
more compliant and obedient). Emit responds to questions in much the same way
humans do. Ask him how he feels and he will say he has had a tough day, has a
slight headache, is sorry he broke that vase, and so on. Kimberley flips the
switch at the back of Emit’s neck to “on”. Emit springs to life.

Emit. Good afternoon. I’m Emit, your robotic helper and friend.

Kimberley. Hi.

Emit. How are you? Personally I feel pretty good. Little nervous about
my first day, perhaps. But good. I’m looking forward to working with you.

Kimberley. Now look, before you start doing housework, let’s get one
thing straight. You don’t really understand anything. You can’t think. You
don’t have feelings. You’re just a piece of machinery. Right?

Emit. I am a machine. But of
course I understand you. I’m responding in English aren’t I?

Kimberley. Well, yes you are. You’re a machine that mimics understanding very well, I grant you that. But you can’t
fool me.

Emit. If I don’t understand, why do you go
to the trouble of speaking to me?

Kimberley. Because you
have been programmed to respond to spoken commands. Outwardly you seem human.
You look and behave as if you have understanding, intelligence, emotions,
sensations and so on that we human beings possess. But you’re a sham.

Emit. A sham?

Kimberley. Yes. I’ve been
reading your user manual. Inside that plastic and alloy head of yours there’s a
powerful computer. It’s programmed so that you walk, talk and generally behave
just as a human being would. So you simulate
intelligence, understanding and so on very well. But there is no genuine understanding or intelligence
going on inside there.

Emit: There isn’t?

Kimberley: No. One shouldn’t
muddle up a perfect computer simulation of something with the real thing. You
can program a computer to simulate a thunderstorm but it’s still just that – a
simulation. There’s no real rain,
hail or wind inside the computer, is there? Climb inside and you won’t get wet.
Similarly, you just simulate
intelligence and understanding. It’s not the real thing.

Is Kimberley correct? It may perhaps be true of our
present day machines that they lack genuine understanding and intelligence,
thought and feeling. But is it in
principle impossible for a machine to think? If by 2100 machines as
sophisticated as Emit are built, would we be wrong to claim they understood? Kimberley
thought so.

Emit. But I believe I understand you.

Kimberley. No you don’t.
You have no beliefs, no desires, and no feelings. In fact you have no mind at all. You no more understand the
words coming out of your mouth than a tape recorder understands the words
coming out of its loudspeaker.

Emit. You’re hurting my feelings!

Kimberley. Hurting your feelings? I refuse to feel sorry for a lump of
metal and plastic.

Kimberley. The reason you
don’t understand is that you are run by a
computer. And a computer understand nothing. A computer, in essence is just
a device for shuffling symbols. Sequences of symbols get fed in. Then,
depending on how the computer is programmed, it gives out other sequences of
symbols in response. Ultimately, that’s all any
computer does, no matter how sophisticated.

Emit: Really?

Kimberley: Yes. We build
computers to fly planes, run train systems and so on. But a computer that flies
a plane does not understand that it is flying. All it does is feed out
sequences of symbols depending upon the sequences it receives. It doesn’t
understand that the sequences it receives represent the position of an aircraft
in the sky, the amount of fuel in its tanks, and so on. And it doesn’t
understand that the sequences it puts out will go on to control the ailerons,
rudder and engines of an aircraft. So far as the computer is concerned, it’s
just mechanically shuffling symbols according to a program. The symbols don’t mean anything to the computer.

Emit: Are you sure?

Kimberley:
Quite sure. I will prove it to you. Let me tell you about a thought experiment
introduced by the philosopher John Searle way back in 1980. A woman is locked in a room and given a bunch of
cards with squiggles on. These squiggles are in fact Chinese symbols. But the woman
inside the room doesn’t understand Chinese – in fact, she thinks the symbols
are meaningless shapes. Then she’s given another bunch of Chinese symbols plus instructions
that tell her how to shuffle all the symbols together and give back batches of
symbols in response.

[ILLUSTRATE CHINESE ROOM]

Emit. That’s a nice story. But what’s the point of all this
symbol-shuffling?

Kimberley. Well, the first
bunch of symbols tell a story in Chinese. The second bunch asks questions about
that story. The instructions for symbol-shuffling – her “programme”, if you
like – allow the woman to give back correct Chinese answers to those questions.

Emit: Just as a Chinese
person would.

Kimberley: Right. Now the
people outside the room are Chinese. These Chinese people might well be fooled
into thinking that there was someone inside the room who understood Chinese and
who followed the story, right?

Emit. Yes.

Kimberley. But in fact the woman in the room wouldn’t understand any
Chinese at all, would she?

Emit: No.

Kimberley: She wouldn’t know anything about the story. She need not even
know that there is a story. She’s
just shuffling formal symbols around according to the instructions she was
given. By saying the symbols are “formal” I mean that whatever meaning they might have is irrelevant
from her point of view. She’s simply shuffling them mechanically according to
their shape. She’s doing something that a piece of machinery could do.

Emit. I see. So you are
saying that the same is true of all computers? They understand nothing.

Kimberley: Of course. All computers, no matter how complex, function the
same way. They don’t understand the symbols that they mechanically shuffle.
They don’t understand anything.

Emit. And this is why you think I
don’t understand?

Kimberley. That’s right.
Inside you there’s just another highly complex symbol-shuffling device. So you
understand nothing. You merely provide a perfect
computer simulation of someone that understands.

Emit. That’s odd. I thought I
understood.

Kimberley: You only say that because you’re such a great simulation!

Emit is of
course vastly more sophisticated than any current computer. Nevertheless, Kimberley
believes Emit works on the same basic principle. If Kimberley is right then, on
Searle’s view, Emit understands nothing.

The
“right stuff”

Emit now
asks why, if he doesn’t understand, what
more is required for understanding?

Emit. So what’s the difference between you and me that explains why you
understand and I don’t?

Kimberley. What you lack, according to Searle, is the right kind of stuff.

Emit. The right kind of stuff?

Kimberley. Yes. You are made out of the wrong kind of material. In fact,
Searle doesn’t claim machines can’t think. After all, we humans are machines,
in a way. We humans are biological
machines that have evolved naturally. Now such a biological machine might
perhaps one day be grown and put together artificially, much as we now build a
car. In which case we would have
succeeded in building a machine that understands. But you, Emit, are not such a
biological machine. You’re merely an electronic computer housed in a plastic
and alloy body.

Emit’s
artificial brain

Searle’s
thought experiment does seem to show
that no programmed computer could ever understand. But must a metal, silicon
and plastic machine like Emit contain that sort of computer? No, as Emit now
explains.

Emit: I’m afraid I have to correct you about what’s physically inside
me.

Kimberley: Really?

Emit: Yes. That user’s manual is out of date. There’s no
symbol-shuffling computer in here. Actually, I am one of the new generation of
Brain-O-Matic machines.

Kimberley: Brain-O-Matic?

Emit: Yes. Inside my head is an artificial, metal and silicon brain. You
are aware, I take it, that inside your head there is a brain composed of
billions of neurones woven together to form a complex web?

Kimberley: Of course.

Emit: Inside my head there is exactly the same sort of web. Only my
neurones aren’t made out of organic matter like yours. They’re metal and
silicon. Each one of my artificial neurones is designed to function just as an
ordinary neurone would. And these artificial neurones are woven together in
just the same way as they are in a normal human brain.

Kimberley: I see.

Emit: Now your organic
brain is connected to the rest of your body by a system of nerves.

Emit: Well, my brain is connected up to my artifical body in exactly the
same manner. And, because it shares the same architecture as a normal human
brain – my neurones are spliced together in the same way – so it responds in
the same way.

Geeena: I see. I had no idea that such Brain-O-Matic machines had been
developed.

Emit: Now that you know how I function internally, doesn’t that change
your mind about whether or not I understand? Don’t you now accept I do have feelings?

Kimberley: No. The fact remains that you are still made out of the wrong stuff. You need a brain made
out of organic material like mine in order genuinely to understand and have
feelings.

Emit: I don’t see why the kind of stuff
out of which my brain is made is relevant. After all, there’s no symbol-shuffling
going on inside me, is there?

Kimberley: Hmm. I guess not. You are not a “computer” in that sense. You
don’t have a programme. So I suppose Searle’s thought experiment doesn’t apply.
Searle doesn’t have any argument against the suggestion that you understand. But it seems to me that
you are still just a machine.

Emit: But remember, you’re
a machine too. You’re a meat machine,
rather than a metal and silicon machine.

Kimberley: But you only mimic
understanding, feeling and all the rest.

Emit: But what’s your argument
for saying that? In fact, I know that
you’re wrong. I am inwardly aware that I really
do understand. I know I really do
have feelings. I’m not just mimicking
all this stuff. But of course it is difficult for me to prove that to you.

Kimberley: I don’t see how
you could prove it.

Emit: Right. But then neither can you
prove to me that you understand, that
you have thoughts and feelings and so
on.

Kimberley: I suppose not.

Replacing
Kimberley’s neurones

Emit: Imagine we were
gradually to replace the organic neurones in your brain with artificial metal
and silicon ones like mine. After a year or so, you would have a Brain-O-Matic
brain just like mine. What do you suppose would happen to you?

Kimberley:
Well, as more and more of the artificial neurones were introduced, I would
slowly cease to understand. My feelings and thoughts would drain away and I
would eventually become inwardly dead, just like you. For my artificial
neurones would be made out of the wrong sort of stuff. A Brain-O-Matic brain
merely mimics understanding.

Emit: Yet
no one would notice any outward difference?

Kimberley:
No, I suppose not. I would still behave
in the same way, because the artificial neurones would perform the same job as
my originals.

Emit:
Right. But then not even you would
notice any loss of understanding or feeling
as your neurones were replaced, would you?

Kimberley:
Why do you say that?

Emit: If
you noticed a loss of understanding and feeling, then you would mention it,
presumably, wouldn’t you? You would say something like: “Oh my God, something
strange is happening, over the last few months my mind seems to have started
fading away!”

Kimberley: I imagine I would, yes.

Emit: Yet
you wouldn’t say anything like that,
would you, because your outward behaviour, as you have just admitted, would
remain just the same as usual.

Kimberley:
Oh. That’s true, I guess.

Emit: But then it follows that, even as your understanding and feeling
dwindled toward nothing, you still won’t be aware of any loss.

Kimberley:
Er, I suppose it does.

Emit: But
then you’re not inwardly aware of
anything that you would be conscious of losing were your neurones slowly to be
replaced by metal and silicon ones.

Kimberley:
I guess not.
Emit: Then I rest my case: you think you’re inwardly aware of “something” –
understanding, feeling, whatever you will – that you suppose you have and I,
being a “mere machine”, lack. But it turns out you’re actually aware of no such thing. This magical “something”
is an illusion.

Kimberley:
But I just know that there’s more to
my understanding – andto these thoughts, sensations and emotions
that I’m having – than could ever
be produced simply by gluing some bits of plastic, metal and silicon together.

Kimberley is right that most
of us think we’re inwardly aware of a
magical and mysterious inner “something” that we “just know” no mere lump of
plastic, metal and silicon could ever have. Mind you, it’s no less difficult to
see how a lump of organic matter, such as a brain, could have it either. Just
how do you build consciousness and
understanding out of strands of meat? So perhaps what Kimberley is really
ultimately committed to is the view that understanding, feeling and so on are not really physical at all.

But in any case, as Emit has just
pointed out, the mysterious “something” Kimberley thinks she is inwardly aware
of and that she thinks no metal and plastic machine could have does begin to
seem rather illusory once one starts to consider cases like the one Emit
describes. For it turns out this inner “something” is something she could not
know about. Worse still, it could have no effect on her outward behaviour (for
remember that Brain-O-Matic Kimberley would act in the very same way). As ones
thoughts and feelings, understanding and emotions both do affect behaviour and are
known to one, it seems Kimberley must be wrong. Indeed, it seems it must be
possible, at least in principle, for non-organic machines to have them too.

Yet Kimberley remains convinced that Emit
understands nothing.

Kimberley:
Look, I am happy to carry on the pretence
that you understand me, as that is how you’re designed to function. But the
fact remains you’re just a pile of plastic and circuitry. Real human beings are
deserving of care and consideration. I empathize with them. I can’t empathize
with a glorified household appliance.

Emit lowered his gaze and
stared at the carpet.

Emit: I
will always be just a thing to you?

Kimberley: Of course. How can I be friends with a dishwasher-cum-vacuum-cleaner?

Emit: We
Brain-O-Matics find rejection hard.

Kimberley:
Right. Remind me to congratulate your manufacturers on the sophistication of
your emotion simulator. Now hoover the carpet.

A forlorn expression passed
briefly across Emit’s face.

Emit: Just
a thing…

He stood still for a moment,
and then slumped forward. A thin column of smoke drifted slowly up from the
base of his neck.

Kimberley: Emit? Emit? Oh not another dud.

What to read next?

Some of the same issues and arguments covered in this chapter also arise in
the chapter “The Consciousness Conundrum”. Also see chapter “The Strange Case
of the ‘Rational’ Dentist”.

Further
reading

The Chinese
Room Argument appears in John Searle’s paper “Minds, Brains and “Programs”,
which features as chapter 37 of: